What were the battlefields of the Western Front really like? Most of the photographs were taken on the ground behind the lines, or in trenches, but do not actually show the ground over which soldiers had to move and fight or the obstacles in their way.
Although observation from balloons had been in limited use since the American Civil War, it was in the First World War that air observation and reconnaissance was fully developed. The development of aeroplanes with the ability to carry cameras in the air, enabled commanders to “See over the hill”, to view the ground in front of them, and the enemy dispositions, that were previously impossible.
Nearly a century ago, in January 1915, the first photographic section of the Royal Flying Corps was set up to take and interpret aeroplane photographs over the Western Front. From that small beginning rose a photographic reconnaissance organisation essential for military intelligence that by 1918 had taken over 100,000 photographs on the Western Front alone.
Photographs in themselves were useless without practical interpretation, which required a new skill. Originally, the first interpreters of these air photographs were self taught, but by 1916 the first training courses for photographic interpreters were started. Photographic Interpreters, or PIs as they later became known, learned to identify machine gun posts, artillery positions, communication cables and other military activity, that would make a decisive contribution to intelligence gathering
Aerial photographs provide a unique contemporary birds-eye view of the Western Front battlefield immediately before, during and after military action. These photographs, taken by the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force in providing reconnaissance for the British Army on the Western Front, have been selected from the Imperial War Museums “Box Collection”. This unique archive of over 150,000 glass negatives, comprises possibly over 90 per cent of the official photo-reconnaissance coverage of the Western Front, remained largely unseen for over 80 years.
Using a selection of these photographs, together with their contemporary trench maps, it is possible to obtain a bird’s eye view of the battlefields, as they were seen by the reconnaissance aircrew and the photographic interpreters over 90 years ago.
Nicholas C. Watkis is the author of The Western Front from the Air. The photographs included and analysed here were taken by the Royal Flying Corps to provide reconnaissance for the British Army on the Western Front and are drawn from the huge archive held by The Imperial War Museum. The reader will, quite literally, see just what the Western Front looked like.